Secretive brothers Michael and Reiner Schmidt-Ruthenbeck, who own nearly 16% of the German retail giant Metro Group, hail from a family of merchants whose business roots trace back to the founding of department store CW Jung in the city of Duisburg in 1906. Their grandfather Karl Schmidt expanded into the wholesale trade in the 1920s. His sons Ernst and Wilhelm (father of Michael and Rainer) opened

the first Metro hypermarket in Essen in 1963. The following year they formed a partnership with the Haniel family and the late billionaire Otto Beisheim to propagate Metro Cash & Carry -- a chain of self-service wholesale markets. Metro AG went public in 1996, after the merger of Metro Cash & Carry with multi-channel retailers Kaufhof Holding AG and Asko Deutsche Kaufhaus AG. The international colossus known today as Metro Group comprises a variety of retail brands operating in sectors ranging from wholesale cash & carry (Metro) and food retailing (Real) to department stores (Galeria Kaufhof) and specialty stores selling sporting goods (Sportarena) and consumer electronics (Saturn, Media Markt). Metro Group generates annual revenues in excess of $70 billion and employs approximately 225,000 people in about 30 countries. Neither Michael or Rainer Schmidt-Ruthenbeck is involved in the management of the company. Besides their Metro stake, they own Travel Charme, a chain of 12 luxury hotels and spas in Germany and Austria. Their family fortune underwrites a German foundation, Siftung Mercator, which supports projects aimed at mitigating climate change; reducing educational inequities between people of migrant and German origin; strengthening international understanding and the "cohesion" of Europe; and promoting cultural education. Since its formation in 1996, the foundation has spent over $400 million financing 940 projects. A Swiss family foundation, Siftung Mercator Schweiz, founded in 1998, works independently of the German foundation but is guided by the same principles and beliefs, and focuses on similar themes.

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